Every summer for the past 37 years, the Smithsonian Folklife Festival has highlighted the culture of different states, nations, or other communities, with each program offering new challenges and opportunities to fulfill the Smithsonian's mission of increasing and diffusing knowledge. Sometimes the cultures that are the most challenging to present are not the most distant and least familiar--rather, they are the very ones that we think we know. Scotland is one of these.

Americans tend to have a very positive impression of Scotland. Many Americans--including a majority of our presidents and "Founding Fathers"--have claimed some Scottish or ...